


Night Still Comes

by ishie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Against all odds, Community: trope_bingo, F/M, Trope Bingo Round 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 20:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1722173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't the first time John has hustled himself out of the house late at night, bound for parts of the city he'd never even heard of five years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Still Comes

**Author's Note:**

> For the trope "against all odds", in the loosest possible terms. Set post-fall and pre-Sherlock's return, in some alternate universe or co-worker's unspoken theory of Sherlock's machinations.
> 
> Title from the song by Neko Case. Thanks to B for the beta!

John dodges a spray of water from a passing minicab and, soaked all the way down to the skin, makes for the pub across the square. The place is crowded and too loud for his taste but the lights are bright. And it's dry and warm inside, which makes it better than the out of doors by orders of magnitude. 

When John gets all the way inside, though, what seems like half of London is there and on the pull. Ranging up and down the room like lions stalking a watering hole, watching for their opening amidst the flashes of skin and teeth. Loud music batters at his ears. The acrid stench of a recent cigarette lingers in the wake of more than a few of those who weave through the crowd. On another night, John might weather the noise and the crowd long enough to chat up a likely lady or two. Maybe he'd try to find someone willing to help him forget how gray and dirty and _tired_ the world has grown.

Not tonight, though. Tonight he plans to go home. Alone. He'll undress in the middle of his spartan room, shedding his wet clothes like a skin. He'll stand, staring, under the shower until the pipes groan the warning they're about to run cold. He'll crack open a bottle of something dark and fiery and watch the rain spit against the windows until it turns to snow. 

He'd be there now, except: there was this text from Bernie. Just a photo of the woman John had asked him to look out for and an address. 

This isn't the first time John has hustled himself out of the house late at night, bound for parts of the city he'd never even heard of five years ago. Hell, two years ago. The longer he lives in London, the more it seems to unfurl itself out from the middle, new streets and blocks of flats sprouting like warrens wherever he turns. 

A good night has little to do with the work he's doing and everything to do with how lost he gets along the way. It's disorienting in the extreme, having to count crossings in his head and try to fix a map in his mind's eye. John's only lucky he hasn't the demands of truly earning his keep; Reichenbach saw to that, even after all the claims had been settled and the payments made. He has a roof over his head and these little affairs that come trickling in from those who still believe in Sherlock Holmes.

With muttered _pardon_ s and the occasional impatient elbow when someone doesn't move fast enough, John makes his way across the length of the room. A gap opens between two braying drunks in pinstriped trousers and rolled-back sleeves, and he steps through with something that could be called relief. The toilets are tucked away in a corner, no lines snaking away from their doors or impatient punters trying to break down doors. Superstition has him sending up a quick, irreverent thanks to whatever saint might be responsible for keeping adventurous couples from testing public indecency statutes.

\---

Someone stumbles and falls against his back, the hard press of knuckles catching on a tender spot next to his spine. John's halfway through a turn to confront whoever it is, heart-rate jumping sky-high, fight winning over flight for the umpteenth time in as many weeks, when he stops dead in his tracks. Half-remembered lines from old movies are suddenly in his head. 

Molly Hooper sits alone in a booth at the back. There's a sweating glass of something clear and fizzy at her elbow and another—tall, and nearly empty—on the table opposite her place. She pokes at her mobile, a frown crinkling the upper half of her face and turning her mouth down. She has swept her hair up and back, off her neck, with one of those spiky flower things tucked behind her ear like at Christmas. 

Something stings in his chest. He rubs at it absently, already looking away from Molly's frustrated though still too-open expression. He hopes whatever's got her attention will keep it for just a few seconds more. He had only ducked in here to get out of the driving rain and to have a piss, too exhausted from the weight of the day to remember what ten o'clock on a Saturday night would look like inside. But now, steaming slightly in the heat as the rain evaporates from his heavy coat, he almost wonders if something else was guiding him here. 

John steals another look, at exactly the wrong time. Molly's mouth drops open. She waves. 

"John! John Watson!"

For the span of time it takes him to take another step, he thinks about pretending he didn't hear or see her. He'll keep his head down and go right on past the toilets, through whatever door lurks at the end of the darkened hallway. From there he can make his escape, back out into the winter's night and away. He can keep the past where it belongs, keep it separate from whatever it is he's managed to build for himself, here and now.

But by the time his heel is flat on the floor, he's pivoting again, his mind made up. Molly's eyes go from wide and surprised to rounded with pleasure. Her cheeks pinken when he slides into the empty seat opposite her.

"How are you?" she says, before her brain catches up to her tongue and she winces. "No, I mean. I'm sorry. It's good to see you, John."

Her words sound earnest, almost happy, and he finds himself replying in kind. It _is_ good to see her, a friendly face at the end of a long, dark day. She's full of life and light, her warm hands pressing against his for an instant then fluttering away. She plays with her earring, her necklace, the edge of the coaster under her drink. And all the time, she's smiling. 

If it doesn't quite meet her eyes, he can hardly blame her.

"I'm sorry," he says, already grasping for a way out. "I shouldn't have sat down like this. Rude. You're probably waiting for your ... friend? I don't want to intrude."

"Oh, no! You're fine. Meena went out to ring her fiance. She could be gone quite a while." She shrugs. "If she comes back."

Molly looks away as if to check but while she's turned toward the door, he sees the sweep of her lashes as she closes her eyes. Her lips tighten, the tip of her nose pulling down slightly with the motion. John feels as if he's walked in on her in the bath, so naked is the flash of emotion across what little he can see of her face. A feeling to match starts to coil in his gut.

The smile she gives when she turns back is too bright, too wide. 

"It _is_ good to see you," she says again.

\---

Somehow, John remembers how to be in the world enough to fill the holes in the conversation so that Molly doesn't blink with concern. She doesn't tilt her head in preparation for the questions he's been answering for months now and his urge to leave ebbs away. When her drink runs dry, he collects both empty glasses and gets two fresh from the barman. Just water for him. Crawling inside the bottle waiting for him at home is as close to abandon as John gets these days. 

At some point he discards his heavy coat, bundling it around the heavy pistol in the pocket and tucking it in between his hip and the wall. His trousers are splashed with mud and God only knows what else, but his shirt and jumper are relatively clean and dry. When he pushes the sleeves back, he catches Molly watching his hands over the rim of her glass. When he apologizes for how disheveled he looks, scratching the beard he keeps forgetting to shave, he sees her rubbing her thumb across the pulse in her throat and down to stroke her hands along her clavicle, before her cheeks pinken again and she looks away.

That's... It's unexpected, is what it is. He knows what it means when she looks back and her lips tighten, just a fraction of an inch, and her teeth flash around the end of the straw. He's spent the last however many months—years, maybe—trying to lose himself in exactly that look. There's no history in that look. Very little future. 

There usually isn't, that is.


End file.
